36 vues du Pic Saint Loup

Around a small mountain

On a winding mountain road, Vittorio stops to help Kate, whose car has broken down. After gallantly making the repair, without a single word spoken, he speeds off. When their paths cross again, Vittorio learns that Kate has returned to join her family's traveling circus after leaving under mysterious conditions many years ago. Intrigued by her story, Vittorio stays for the show, and the next one, and little by little is integrated into the circus and the lives of its performers.

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Jacques Rivette directed one masterpiece over the course of his lengthy career, "Celine & Julie Go Boating." He made a couple of things that were OK. And then he made bombs, lots and lots of BOMBS. This dreadful film about circus performers in rural France is one of those. Boring beyond endurance. Circus clowns enact or rehearse the same old dud routines over and over again; Jane Birkin has an unplayable role, in which she must own up to her guilt for having abandoned the circus several years earlier -- personally, her character ought to have congratulated herself for having the wherewithal to escape these duds -- but then there would be no movie if she weren't racked with absurd guilt. Ugh! The movie is so bad that not even as good an actor as Sergio Castellito can do anything with it.

The real star is the Pic Saint Loup which is in the background of 36 shots in the film. The French village and countryside are wildly beautiful. The story is about aging performers in a small and failing country circus and especially one who has returned to deal with her guilt. It is told in a very self concsiously Beckettish way. The characters speak off the point, sparsely and are very posed. I know and like Samuel Beckett's work, but this ain't it Pierre. You may find it works for you. The south of France is beautiful and well framed.